Things to think about.
The very first trailer for the upcoming Mario movie (opens in new tab), which was picked up by WoWHead, included a funny detail that a YouTuber by the name of Zaptagious noticed. The clips pretty much follow the same beats as the Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction opening cinematic.
In both movies, a wicked overlord and a fat, defiant emissary are meeting, with the typical barbarian army at the gates situation. While Mario starts with the Koopa army bearing down on a penguin city right out of Frozen, Lord of Destruction opens with the Sescheron emissary stepping out of the city to view Baal’s amassing army. Take your pick between the original and remastered versions of the Diablo 2 cinematic; they both share an uncanny resemblance.
Mario and Diablo roughly match each other beat for a beat after starting from a variety of perspectives in the same type of scene, with minor timing deviations. The big bad boy says something cheeky and sinister in response to the squat little city rep’s warnings, and then all hell bursts free on the city’s defenseless inhabitants.
I have had to say, the idea of those penguins eating it caused me to feel far worse. The warrior city of Sescheron is kind of just meh, but they were really cute.
I do not even think this indicates that the lovely people at Illumination were deliberately copying from a 21-year-old PC ARPG, but rather it just shows how effectively it parodies a stock fantasy movie scene. You could see this exact scenario happening in any variety of media, whether Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, The Lord of the Rings, the Game of Warcraft movie, etc. It’s just really delicious how well this Mario scene matches the famously grim and dark Diablo.
